the little girl had learned to love her captors. She had learned their
speech and forgot her own; then, by and by when she was no longer a
little girl, a great chief named Nacona had wooed her and made her his
wife. Nacona was a mighty warrior and made frequent raids on the white
settlements and carried off much property--cattle and horses.
But finally his last raid came. Captain Sul. Ross (later Governor
Ross), stationed at Fort Griffin with a troop of Rangers--sixty trained
Indian fighters--was watching for an opportunity to fall upon Nacona,
unawares. The opportunity came when Nacona, with his braves and many
of their squaws and children, were camped one day at the mouth of
Talking John Creek in Hardeman County. There was good hunting on
Talking John Creek, and Nacona and his braves, fresh from a raid on the
white settlements below, had stopped there for a few days to rest and
recuperate before taking up the final homeward march. They felt secure
and had no thought that Rangers were anywhere in the vicinity.
Then suddenly there was a clatter of horses' feet, a crack of carbines,
and Captain Ross with his sixty fighting devils were upon them. There
was no time for preparation. Most of the Indians fled wildly, leaving
their squaws and their captured plunder. Nacona's wife, who had been
the little captured Parker girl, was in the camp with him; also their
two children, Quanah, and his little sister, Prairie Flower.
With the first charge of the Rangers, Nacona seized his rifle, leaped
upon his horse and rushed after his braves, in the hope of gathering
them for battle. That his wife and children would not be harmed by the
white men he knew. He knew also, that the case was desperate, and he
realized this more fully when he found that his braves were hopelessly
scattered, and in full flight.
Nacona prepared to meet his death. The mounted Rangers were already
close upon him and he would die like the great chief that he was.
Beneath a large mesquite tree he dismounted and seating himself began
chanting the death song. Captain Ross and a detachment of Rangers rode
up. Nacona still chanted on. Then suddenly it may have occurred to him
that they meant to take him alive. They would imprison him, perhaps
hang him. He would die fighting.
Rousing as from a dream, he ceased his chant and throwing his rifle
to his shoulder, fired. The bullet missed, but it brought a quick
answering shot from a Ranger at Captain Ross's side, and the chief
dropped forward, his face in the grass.
So died Nacona, bravely, as a chief should die, and was buried where
he fell. In time his grave became a landmark. And Nacona's wife, who
had been Cynthia Ann Parker--no longer of the white race, but an
Indian in language and habits and affiliations--was brought by her
new captors, once more to dwell among her own kind, bringing with her
the boy Quanah, and his little sister, Prairie Flower. The mother was
never satisfied with civilization and always longed to return to the
tribe. Little Prairie Flower--homesick and delicate--pined away and
soon followed Nacona to the Spirit Land. The boy Quanah was sent back
to his father's people, for he was a chief in his own right. In time he
became a great leader of the Comanche Tribe, and, unlike his father, a
friend of his mother's race. He surrounded himself with the comforts
and many of the luxuries of white men; his home to-day is truly a white
man's home, with handsome furnishings, a piano and pictures; his voice
has been heard in the white man's councils, and a white man's city
was named in his honor. But the language of white men he has never
learned.[15]
Altogether that wolf hunt was a great success. Seventeen wolves
completed the result of the five days of hunting, most of them
taken alive and lariated out around the camp--a lively and musical
collection that delighted all parties concerned, except possibly
the wolves themselves. As for President Roosevelt he enjoyed this
vigorous isolated vacation continuously. But it was not easy to
preserve the isolation of that camp. Every day visitors came riding
or driving across the country, from somewhere, to seek an audience
with the nation's Chief Executive. There were men who wanted office
for themselves; men who wanted office for other people; men who
wanted every sort of Presidential assistance under the sun; men who
came merely out of curiosity and for the purpose of relating how
they had visited "Teddy" in his hunting camp and taken a hand in the
sport. A guard of soldiers from Fort Sill was supposed to picket the
reservation, but would-be visitors eluded the men and somehow got
through the lines. They did not get past Captain Bill, who met them and
serenely but surely turned them back. If they had business, Washington
was the place to transact it, he said. The President was here only
for pleasure. Some went willingly enough--others protested, but all
went. The President's days in the field, and those rare evenings about
the campfire were not to be marred by business or any mere social
diversions.
And when it was all over Theodore Roosevelt, in his enthusiasm
pronounced it all "Bully!" and repeated it, and said he had never had a
better time in his life, which was probably a correct statement.
And when they all rode back to Frederick he led the way again, and they
set out with a whoop and a run and yell, regular cowboy style, and as
they came into town where there was a great crowd waiting, the people
went fairly wild, as of course they would. Then the President had to
talk to the crowd again--he had said a few words on his arrival--and
tell them what a good time he had had, and what a great country this
was in general, and that part in particular, and how much he thanked
them for letting him come there, and how he was going on to Colorado
for a bear hunt, but how he never expected to have any better time than
he had had right there in Comanche, on the Deep Red wolf-hunt with Tom
Waggoner and Burke Burnett, and Bill McDonald and John Abernethy, and
Quanah Parker and Too-nicey, Some-nicey and Plenty-nice-enough--
No, he didn't say all that either, but he said the right thing for the
occasion, just as he always does, and especially on an occasion like
that, where he is happy and full of life and the wild freedom of the
open. And every man within sound of his voice was his friend forever,
from that moment, regardless of his politics, and no man of all there,
was a warmer admirer and friend than Captain Bill McDonald of Texas,
who was a "hell-roaring" democrat and hadn't wanted to go.
He did not accompany the President to Colorado, though the arrangement
would have just suited both sides. But after all, he was a Ranger,
and there was other kind of game--game on which it is always open
season--waiting to be brought home. He accompanied the President's
party a distance on their journey; then he said:
"Well, Mr. President, I'm getting out of my jurisdiction. I guess I'll
leave you, now."
"But Captain, you are coming to see me in Washington, some day," said
the President as he grasped his hand.
"I don't know, Mr. President. I don't know how to put on a plug hat and
one of these spike-tailed coats, and pigeon-toed shoes."
"Well, don't try. Come exactly as you are, and there are a few of those
spike-tailed fellows around the Capitol that I'll let you take a shot
at. Now remember, you're coming--just as you are!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 15: The story as told by Chief Quanah not having been
preserved, most of the details here given are drawn from an article by
Fred. Harvey.]
XXXV
The Conditt Murder Mystery
A TERRIBLE CRIME AT EDNA, TEXAS. MONK GIBSON'S ARREST AND ESCAPE. THE
GREATEST MAN-HUNT IN HISTORY
It was during the latter part of 1905 and the spring of 1906 that
Ranger Captain McDonald was engaged in unraveling a mystery which gave
opportunity for the employment of his natural talent for detective
work, combined with the skill and experience acquired during a long
period of following criminals and uncovering crime.
On September 28th, 1905, two miles from the little town of Edna,
Jackson County, Texas, during the temporary absence of J.F.
Conditt--employed in rice harvest, seven miles distant--his wife and
four young children, ranging in ages from a baby boy of three to a
little girl of twelve, were murdered in broad daylight--their bodies
left as they had fallen in and about the premises. The murders were
committed in the most brutal and bloody way, with knife, adz, and such
household tool and implement as came to hand. Three of the murdered
children were boys. The little girl of twelve had been violated. Only
an infant of a few months had been left alive. The story of that
ghastly crime--its motive; its commission; its detection and the
punishment of its perpetrators--can only be epitomized here, for its
details would fill a volume and belong only in the official records;
neither are they yet complete. We shall attempt, therefore, no more
than the outlines, with such particulars as will show the scope and the
importance of Captain McDonald's work in solving a mystery and fixing
the guilt, not only without the assistance of those most interested,
but in the face of their bitter opposition.
The Conditt family had but recently moved to Edna. They were working
people, respectable but poor, and had taken a house formerly occupied
by negroes. This in itself was an offense to their immediate
neighborhood--a negro settlement--and when Mr. Conditt repaired his
fences and thereby shut off from public use a windmill where the
negroes had been accustomed to go for water, his offense in their eyes
became a crime. They did not want him there and resolved to get rid
of him. How many or how few were concerned, directly and indirectly,
in the conspiracy to drive out or destroy the white family that had
settled among them, will perhaps never be known. That negroes seldom
betray one another, and that a negro conspiracy is the most difficult
of all plots to illuminate, are facts only too well established by our
recently recorded history. The Conditt murder plot furnishes an unusual
example of this peculiar African phase.
The negroes were sullen, at first, in their manner toward the Conditts.
Then one of them--a certain Felix Powell--spoke insultingly to Mildred
Conditt, the little girl of twelve. Then came September 28th--nine
o'clock in the morning--the day and hour of destruction.
It was one o'clock in the afternoon before the crime became known. Monk
Gibson, a colored boy of sixteen who had been plowing for Mr. Conditt
in a field about two hundred yards from the house, carried the news.
He ran to the house of a white man named John Gibson, some distance
away, and reported that he had just seen Mrs. Conditt being chased
around the house by two men. John Gibson went on a run to the Conditt
premises; found no trace of the two men, but did find the murdered
family, a house like a slaughter pen, and in the midst of this horror,
a wailing infant. Gibson, the white man, hurried the colored boy off
to bring Mr. Conditt from the rice field, and set out to spread the
alarm. In a brief time the country was aflame. Monk Gibson, returning
with Mr. Conditt, was put under arrest, and it was now found that he
was smeared and splashed with blood. He explained the stains by saying
that his nose had bled and that he had hurt himself creeping through a
wire fence, but there were no indications of his nose having bled, and
he could show only the merest scratch of a wound. That he was concerned
in the crime was never doubted, but only the unreasoning then believed
he had committed it alone. Questioned, he told conflicting stories,
finally stating that men whom he did not know had dragged him to the
house, compelled him to view their work, splashed him with blood and
set him free.
Of course these statements were not believed. The whole country round
about Edna, now terribly aroused, was determined to have the truth.
If Monk Gibson was alone in the crime, and there were many who soon
reached this conclusion, his punishment would not wait the slow process
of the law. If he were one of several, he must reveal the names of his
associates. He was put through the severest ordeal of examination, but
he would utter nothing more than the confused contradictory stories
already told. Every method was tried to extort information, yet he only
repeated his conflicting stories and refused to tell names.
It was now pretty generally assumed that he had nothing to tell and
that he alone had committed the crime. A lynching mob was forming,
and a report came from Bay City that two hundred men had chartered a
special train for Edna and were coming to destroy the boy murderer
that night. Sheriff Egg of Edna and his deputies resolved to remove
the prisoner to a place of safety, and quietly arranged their plan.
As soon as it was dark they had swift horses taken to the back of the
jail, one for Gibson and others for the officers who would accompany
him. Then quietly they got him out through a back window; mounted
him, unfettered, between two officers, and slipped away toward
Hallettsville, where it was believed he would be safe.
They never reached Hallettsville. While galloping at full speed along
an open road they came to a curve. The officers had no thought that
Gibson would try to escape, and he was riding free. But at the curve,
Gibson did not turn. He kept straight on, drove his animal over a fence
and disappeared in the thick darkness. When the officers recovered
themselves and made their way into the field, they found the horse he
had been riding, but their prisoner had vanished. They came back to
Edna crestfallen and discredited. The people at first declared that
the deputies had put Gibson in hiding. Then, only half convinced, and
fiercely angry, they joined in what was, perhaps, the greatest man hunt
ever known in Texas. Every available horse and gun was secured--every
available man was presently in the saddle.
But this was only a beginning. Within a brief time fresh car-loads
of horses were shipped to Edna; ranchmen sent their cowboys; every
pack of blood-hounds in south Texas was mustered into the service;
commissary camps were established; leaders were appointed for the
various bands; business was suspended, the country became one vast
encampment and all for the purpose of running down a single boy of
sixteen who had slipped away from the deputies and was believed to be
hiding in the swamps. In the midst of all this, Governor Lanham ordered
Adjutant-General Hulen with four companies of State troops to invest
the place; whereupon Edna became a military camp in fact.
Captain McDonald was working in another part of the State when he first
saw the reports of the Conditt murder. His headquarters being now at
Alice, the scene of the crime was in his territory, and before many
days he was notified by General Hulen to report at Edna with men and
blood-hounds to join in the search. Arriving at the front he found
such a turmoil of excitement and animosity and trouble of many kinds
as is not often gathered in any one place. Men and groups of men,
each more distracted than the other, were rushing hither and yon on
a hundred fruitless and mainly imaginary errands. Nobody was really
doing anything; everybody was blaming everybody else; everybody was mad
at the soldiers, mad at the arriving Rangers, mad at each other; and
meantime Monk Gibson was still at large.
Captain McDonald looked over the ground, as quietly as they would let
him, and gave it out as his conclusion that no one man could have
committed all that crime in open daylight, let alone a boy of sixteen.
The sentiment was almost wholly the other way by this time, and the
Ranger Captain's opinion was bitterly opposed from the start. What
the people wanted was a victim. If they could capture Monk Gibson
they would have a victim, and they did not want any complication that
would interfere with this elementary proposition and the summary idea
of justice which lay behind it. The presence of military and especially
of Rangers was a menace, and for Bill McDonald to try to confuse
matters with his detective theories, which might result in Gibson going
clear, even if captured, would not be lightly borne. He was given to
understand that the people of Edna knew what they wanted, and when they
wanted Rangers they would invite them.
Captain Bill, however, followed his own ideas. He felt sure that
Gibson was only one of several that had perpetrated the crime, and was
doubtless a tool of older men. Moreover there were bloody hand-prints,
left by one or more of the Conditt murderers, and these he could not
believe had been made by the hand of a boy of sixteen, small for his
years as Monk Gibson was declared to be. He further believed that
Gibson was somewhere in hiding near his home, for by long experience he
had learned that the hunted negro will always go home, regardless of
risk.
Meantime, Monk Gibson's parents were in jail, and their premises had
been searched more than once. Other negroes had been arrested on
suspicion, only to be discharged for lack of any tangible evidence.
Captain McDonald went his own way, holding to the theory that the
negro boy would be found in the neighborhood of his own home. His two
blood-hounds, Trouble and Rock, he took there repeatedly to try to pick
up the trail, yet always without success. He believed the boy would
come home for food, and to the nearby windmill for water. The barn
near his father's house was searched daily, and while for some reason
Captain Bill did not attend to this detail himself he was assured each
time that the search had been thorough.
Yet Monk Gibson was hiding in that barn all the time. There were
some unthreshed oats in the barn, and he had found a place where he
could work himself under the straw, leaving no trace on the outside.
Sometimes at night he had crept out to a pig-pen for water, and had
picked some ears of corn in a nearby patch. One morning when he could
stand it no longer he came out and called to a negro named Warren
Powell, whose brother, Felix Powell, already mentioned, was to play an
important part in this tragic drama. Warren Powell immediately took
charge of the boy, Monk, tied him and notified the officers. General
Hulen, Captain McDonald, Sheriff Egg and others responded quickly,
and putting the boy in a buggy made a wild gallop for the jail, by a
circuitous route, to avoid the crowds. He was landed safely inside,
tossed from man to man between a line of bayonets, and when the
infuriated populace gathered they were driven back by a cordon of armed
officials.
Captain McDonald now got himself disliked in more ways than one. For
one thing he persisted in his theory that Monk Gibson alone could not
have committed the crime; for another, he urged that Gibson be taken to
a safer, quieter place for protection. Furthermore he would not permit
them to obtain testimony from the prisoner by torture. Approaching
the jail one night he heard screams of agony. Entering, he found an
assembly of examiners in Monk Gibson's cell, with Gibson tied up by the
thumbs, the boy screaming, but refusing to tell anything more than the
conflicting incoherent stories told at first.
"Take that boy down," said Captain Bill. "Don't you know that anything
you get out of a witness by torture is not evidence enough for a mob,
let alone a court of law?"
Meantime, the Ranger Captain had been picking up threads of evidence
of his own. For one thing he had observed that two negroes--Felix
Powell, already mentioned, and one Henry Howard--had taken a curiously
intense interest in all the investigations--seemingly fascinated by
every movement of the officers, especially of the Rangers. He noticed,
too, that certain other negroes of the settlement were acting in a
manner which to one with a special knowledge of their characteristics,
appeared suspicious. He made carefully guarded inquiries, and learned
that while Powell and Howard claimed to have been working for a man
named John Young all day on the day of the murder, they had in reality
worked for Young only during the afternoon. When he spoke to them
about it their answers were contradictory. Finally Powell acknowledged
that he had not worked for Young during the forenoon, and could give
no satisfactory account of his whereabouts for the morning. It was
generally believed, at first, that the murder had been committed about
one o'clock--the time of the alarm by Monk Gibson--but the condition of
the bodies when found made it evident that the crime had occurred much
earlier--Captain McDonald believed as early as nine o'clock. McDonald
finally questioned Powell directly, and believed he detected guilt in
his every look and word. Powell denied knowing Monk Gibson at all,
though the two had been raised in the same neighborhood. Gibson on the
other hand had already acknowledged that he knew Powell, and had always
known him. Finally Captain Bill said:
"Well, Felix, I think I will put you in jail awhile to refresh your
memory."
The suspected man nearly collapsed at this and protested his innocence.
Searched, a knife was found on him, which had a rusty, inoffensive look
on the outside and according to its owner was very dull and used only
for cutting tobacco. But when this knife was opened it was found to be
of razor-like sharpness, and when a match was passed through the jaws
and blade recesses, the end of the match brought up blood! Two of the
Conditt children had died of ghastly knife wounds. Captain McDonald
believed that this knife had made them.
* * * * *
Evidently he was alone in that belief. The arrest of Powell was
condemned generally as a diversion, to aid in clearing Gibson--it being
widely declared that such was the Ranger Captain's purpose. To this,
however, he paid not much attention--his one desire being to get as
much evidence as possible and bring the guilty to justice. He did not
feel warranted in arresting Howard and the others at this time, though
fully believing them concerned as accessories, if not as principals,
in the plot to kill. That Monk Gibson had not been alone in the crime
he was quite positive. The prints of the bloody hand-mark sawed out of
the Conditt house could not be made to fit Gibson's hand by any stretch
or adjustment of that member. Neither did it look as if it would fit
Powell's hand, though the actual fitting was not then tried, for
Powell was wary, and must be entrapped into a test that would require
such nicety of adjustment. But there had been one more suspicious
circumstance. A shirt had been found tucked away under a bridge over a
creek where it had been washed, though it still bore evidence of blood
stains. Captain McDonald approached Powell with the shirt in a small
bundle under his arm. "That is not my shirt!" declared Powell quickly,
before a word had been said, and before it was possible to tell what
the folded garment was.
Yet the grand jury then in session refused to listen to McDonald's
evidence, or to indict any one but Gibson, who was charged by that body
with the entire crime.